Chapter 63
“How many fights do we have left in us?” Kip asked Cruxer. It seemed like a good time to ask; Tisis was on the other side of their little fleet, checking on her reserve scouts, and she didn’t like him dwelling on the death awaiting them.
The early-morning embarkation had been somber. Now they were crossing the Cerulean Sea at the maximally efficient skimmer speed: slow compared to what the craft were capable of, but preserving the lives of their drafters while still getting them to the Chromeria in two days.
Every one of the thousand drafters, two hundred Cwn y Wawr will-casters and war dogs, and one thousand elite soldiers knew they were heading for a fight for their own lives, for the future of the empire, and even for the future worship of Orholam Himself. Would the Seven Satrapies even exist, or would there be instead nine kingdoms with a high king? Would there be ten gods in this world, or One?
“Mentally we’re tough,” Cruxer said under the sound of the rushing wind. The sea was placid, the sun orange on the horizon, and the sky crystalline blue. It was one of those pristine summer mornings that made you feel that Orholam was full of joy when He created the world. “Emotionally, we all feel like we can fight forever.”
That wasn’t what Kip had meant, and they both knew it. He glanced back at the phalanxes of skimmers and sea chariots behind them. With drafters of various colors of luxin paired at the reeds of the different ships, their colors mixing as they jetted it into the water, the thousands of the Forest’s best were painting Ceres’s skin like artists each wielding a different tone, human colors rising in answer to the divine in the skies.
“Two or three hard skirmishes, maybe. One protracted battle. After that, we’ll start losing significant numbers to luxin burnout. Too many of them have been making up for their lack of skill by drafting ever greater quantities. We might even lose a few on the passage.”
“And the Mighty?” Kip asked, throat tightening. He already had his own guesses, of course. But he was trying to be dispassionate. A full year of raiding and the Battle at Dúnbheo had meant many fights to the death—and when your life is in peril today, why be careful with how much you draft so you can live another year fifteen years from now?
“The nunks are fine, of course,” Cruxer said. “Ferkudi isn’t too bad with blue, but his green is to the halos. Winsen will live forever. His yellow is barely halfway through his irises. Tisis is fine with her green. I’ve got four or five battles left in me. Ben-hadad is fine with yellow, but whenever he’s near a fight, he tries too hard to compensate for his bad leg. His green and blue both are full. It’s Big Leo who’ll probably go first. He’s straining his halos in both red and sub-red.”
“We’re insane for letting Ben-hadad even get close to a battle,” Kip said. “He’s great in a fight, but ultimately, he’s just another drafter. But outside a fight, doing what he does? The man’s a marvel. A once-in-a-generation genius. He’s the one of us who could change the world the most.”
Cruxer looked at him, shadows of Ironfist in his gaze. “You’ve pretty much summed up my thoughts exactly—”
“Glad we’re agreed—”
“About you.”
“Oh.”
Cruxer shrugged. “Granted, you’re a bit better in a fight. Maybe. Having two good legs and all.” But the hint of a smile crept onto his face. He couldn’t deadpan quite like Ironfist, not yet.
“Trouble is,” Kip said, eyes staring at the morning’s beauty but no longer seeing it, “a man isn’t just the one thing he does best. Even if he’s the best at that one thing that the world has ever seen.”
Cruxer turned his palms up. “I haven’t tried to keep you from fights, have I?”
“No,” Kip admitted, coming back to focus.
“But lay off green. You go golem one more time, and you may break the halo yourself.”
“Yeah. I’ve got other options.”
“I know you do. Use them. It’s always green with you.”
“Yes, mother,” Kip said. But they both knew Cruxer was right.
The Mighty didn’t want to fight on the seas, but Ben had refused to let them go unarmed, in case a fight was necessary—maybe the White King had discovered how to make skimmers by now. Also, they’d heard wild rumors about will-cast sharks and other beasts. (Kip’s Night Mares didn’t think it could be done, though. Or not for long. Or not without them also attacking one’s own people. Or . . . )
So the Nightbringers had muskets, a few swivel guns, and a pile of the sticky bombs they called hullwreckers now. The skimmers wouldn’t be defenseless, but they wouldn’t go looking for a slugfest with a galleon, either—a single cannonball strike anywhere would cause a catastrophic failure of the luxin. Ben-hadad said he already had plans to address that in the next generation of skimmers—if he lived so long.
He said it as if he’d started saying the sentence aloud intending to wink or grin, but changed his mind halfway through, like there was so much he would never discover in this life if he died, and that death felt more real now than it had in more than a year filled with fighting.
Cruxer had one of General Derwyn’s drafters taking point a hundred paces out in front of them. A nautical equivalent of outriders protected him on either flank, but the main body traveled in cohorts of twenty craft each, with everything from two-to six-person craft.
Kip was trying to be patient, though he wanted to get to the Chromeria today—and could have, moving with only the Mighty. Moving even a small army at speed was an impressive feat of logistical acumen and leadership. Moving that army over water made it a feat wherein if you loused up, people drowned.
Kip supposed that he should be trying to enjoy the little remaining life he had. It was pretty much impossible to get any work done. Despite the wind blocker, he had to lean close to Cruxer to have a conversation, and it was just Cruxer, Kip, and two young drafters with fresh halos on reeds. Kip had tried talking to them, but that had put a panicked expression in their eyes. They couldn’t concentrate on two things at once.
Funny he thought of them as kids. One of them had to be nearly his own age.
“Lord Commander!” one of them said, laboring to speak and still keep in time with her partner. “Scout returning!”
No sooner had she said the words than Kip saw the scout streaking toward them on a type of craft they’d come to call a flying pulpit. The scouts’ special skimmers were made to be as light and fast as possible, so they’d dispensed with nearly everything: it consisted of a single chair mounted between two propulsion reeds with wings extending from the sides beneath the water. Each scout-drafter (all were small men with excellent upper-body strength) was strapped to his chair and carried a long-lens to see even farther. The craft were ludicrously fast, but they had to be launched at speed and couldn’t stop moving or they’d sink.
The tenth scout was Izemrasen, who was approaching now. Forty years old, he was a ghotra-wearing Parian who’d been training to be a Blackguard when he fell during a wall climb and broke his back. His legs had turned useless and numb. A couple of unnoticed sores on them had gotten infected, and they’d had to be amputated. He’d lived through the operation, but his Chromeria sponsor had abandoned him (illegally), despite his strength as a green drafter.